As always, everyone’s body is different. What works for one person may not work for others. Even if Seroquel isn’t the drug for you, it’s heartening to know that there are (many) success stories. Laura wrote, “. . . I couldn’t imagine my life being better right now. There’s nothing
overwhelmingly fantastic happening, things are good. And life being
good is a damned nice change.” Her post shares her story in more depth.

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3 Responses to “Your Headache Stories: Laura’s Success”

Arrrgh! Pet peeve. I really like Seroquel as a headache preventative medication when the usual things have not worked. It works for a lot of people; it helps sleep; and it helps anxiety.

So, why won’t the manufacturer do a drug study of this medication for migraine?

The condition for which it is approved has a 4% prevalence. Migraine has a 12% prevalence. And yet, the pharmaceutical company, AstraZeneca, does not seem to see the value of migraine/headache as a disease state.

I don’t wish to minimize the impact and distress of mental disorders, but migraine and chronic headache has significant impact and distress as well. Why not seek an additional indication for an already successful drug? After all, Topamax and Depakote started out as medications for epilepsy.

FDA approval for a particular condition like headache or migraine would go a long way toward getting a given medication on insurance formularies, and getting better reimbursement (lower copays).

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I’d never heard of using Seroquel for migraine before I got this message from Laura. It’s a shame migraine isn’t a flashy enough illness to get attention from the pharmaceutical companies.

Seroquel has side effects that are both common, severe, and sometimes irreversible–tardive dyskinesia is bad even by the usual standards of brain drugs. I expect the reason they don’t market it for migraine is they would be sued out of existence.

Seroquel is an atypical antipsychotic, and is not particularly prone to causing tardive dyskinesia. If you are reading information that discusses premarketing adverse events reported to the COSTART system, you should be aware that all symptoms are reported, and no effort is made to determine whether or not they are related to the drug in question.

In the initial studies, the patients being treated had diagnoses for which they had likely been treated in the past with other antipsychotics, and may well have had symptoms related to those medications.

I see no reason why the company would be “sued out of existence” for one diagnosis any more than another. In fact, in the studies done for depression and for bipolar disorder, the incidence of akathisia (a form of highly restless movement disorder) and other extrapyramidal symptoms was equal to or less than placebo. Tardive dyskinesia was seen only in the schizophrenic population.

In light of the high comorbidity of severe migraine and major depression, I see no reason why this should not be considered as a reasonable treatment option.